The secrets to knurling on nickel silver cap n' ring

Boris Ludwig

Boris Ludwig

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Hi fellas,

Hope you're all well. Nice and cool down here in Australia.

I'm trying to teach myself how to make nickel silver reel seat hardware for my rods. But I'm not sure how to go about typical knurling. I've got a few exemplars from what I consider to be well scaled and proportioned to the cap n' ring and I'd like to at least come close to that quality. The knurls are very fine, well shaped and well formed/cut.

Here are a couple examples
Very Fine straight knurl
IMG_8688.JPG

Angled coarser knurl
01-P1040587.jpg


Rope Knurl
IMG_1034.jpg


I'm trying to figure out if these types of knurls are "cut" knurls or "formed" knurls. Hints on how to make them are very scarce on the ground. There are quite a few YouTubes on knurling which are helpful but it still leaves me with those questions as NS hardware for rods aren't the typical examples in Youtube videos. Besides that the idiosyncratic details for NS knurling for this application are not treated anywhere I can find.

My other question is - where do i find such fine knurling tools?

If anyone knows something about this I'd be grateful to hear about it.

Cheers
 
The second pic with the dog head appears to be hand cut with either files or gravers.
Not sure of how fine but, knurls can be ordered fairly fine.
 
First pic looks more like "reeding" as found on some coin edges. Being NS, formed most likely, but cut generally is best on thin pieces. You can get just about any pattern you wish. Straight, left and right are common, but I'd think the rope may be a bit special.
 
Clickspring does some fancy knurling by making special knurls in his clockmaking videos, you might look at that.
 
I found what I've been recommended to be the tools for such fine work. These tools are used in the jewelry trade. They are referred to as a "millgrain wheel" of course there are different sizes and styles. I bought a couple of them. When I try them I'll post my results so you can see it.

Millgrain wheel tools
43-1143x.png

It seems to me that the key for me to find out what was being used for such fine knurling was the word "millgrain" . Put that into google and the right tools started showing.
 
Had some success with some fine knurling...


20180909_095413.jpg
Straight knurl millgrain tools - centre and right.

20180908_202953.jpg
20180908_203142.jpg
20180908_203241.jpg
The final results - could still be cleaner but I think I'm getting close.

20180908_203418.jpg
Finally some rope knurling I'm trying to do. It's still a bit tricky getting everything right but again I'm on the right track.

20180909_095813.jpg
 
Check out George Wilson on this forum. He has made some great tools for knurling . Search for rope knurling on this site.
What brand Id collet are you using?
 
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Jimsehr said:
Check out George Wilson on this forum. He has made some great tools for knurling . Search for rope knurling on this site.
What brand Id collet are you using?
Click to expand...

Hi Jim, I finally got some used Rovi expanding collets...

I did try to buy some pieces from Rovi via their website as the bunch of used collets I bought had a few missing screws etc so I thought 'what the hell, I might as well but a few extra bits' so I ordered, then went to the checkout, but the postage they quoted me was $285USD. So I wrote to them about it asking them to put it into a flat rate box to make it worthwhile me buying. I got no answer even after 3 emails. Then about a month after I happen to come across their site and I noticed there is no longer an option to have it posted to Australia.

Imagine, they didn't even reply to a sincere customer request.

But never mind I'm going to buy elsewhere from now on.

Thanks for the tip on that forum member
 
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